


The Final Death of Henry Morgan

by idelthoughts



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Suicide, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-09 23:58:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5560900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Abe, Henry is dead,” Jo said softly.  “He’s not coming back.”  <i>A post-episode 1x19 AU where Henry tests out the flintlock pistol and it works.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Death of Henry Morgan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InsertImaginativeNameHere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertImaginativeNameHere/gifts).



> Nothing says happy holidays like major character death! You said 'break me,' so I gave it my best shot (so to speak).
> 
> Thank you to pinkelephant5 for the beta help!

Jo got the phone call when she was in the middle of a grocery store buying dinner.

The call display flashed Henry’s name, and she looked at the single-serving frozen lasagne in her hand. She could hear his stuffy disapproval already. She reminded herself that he couldn’t tell what she was buying over the phone; there were limits to Henry’s freakishly canny observational abilities, but even so she felt a preemptive twinge of amused annoyance.

“Hey Henry, what’s up?”

 _“Jo.”_ It was Abe. _“I, ah… I think I might need your help.”_

The tone of his voice set the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She dumped the frozen dinner onto the nearest shelf and started hurrying for the grocery store exit.

“Abe, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

_“It’s Henry.  I think…I think he might be dead.”_

“What?  Abe, tell me what’s happening.”

She scrambled for her keys, keeping the phone clamped between her ear and her shoulder as she fumbled with the lock and got inside.  In the faint distance she could hear Abe mumbling.

_“Come on, Henry, you’ve seen way worse than this.  You’re gonna make it, okay?”_

Was he talking to Henry?  Was Henry still alive?  She shoved the key in the ignition and slammed the car into gear.

“Abe?  Talk to me!  What’s going on?”

_“He was shot, and—and I don’t know!  He’s still here, I… ”_

“Stay put, Abe.  Stay right there, it’s going to be okay.”

She hung up the phone and dialled 911, calling for an ambulance to meet her at _Abe’s Antiques_ as she pulled out into traffic with a squeal of tires.

***

She made it to the shop in a blind haze of single-minded focus, siren blaring and lights flashing as she dodged traffic and screeched to a halt on the sidewalk in front of the shop door.  The ambulance wasn’t there yet, she must have beaten them.  They’d be here soon, no doubt.  She left the lights flashing on her car for the ambulance drivers to spot.

Hopefully they wouldn’t be too late.  If Henry was still hanging on, they could get him some help.

The door was unlocked, and she ran into the store, eyes sharp and alert, but the main floor was empty.  No sign of intruders, nothing amiss.  Where the hell were they?  She drew her gun just in case.

“Abe!  Henry!”

“Down here,” came a quiet call from the basement.

She charged for the stairs and nearly tumbled down them in her haste.

“Abe? Abe, what’s—“

She stopped short at the bottom.

Abe was sitting in a chair in front of Henry’s large desk, his elbows on the desktop and his hands cupped over his mouth either in horror or in prayer. He had the attitude of someone who had been in the same position for a very long time.

“You can do it, Henry, it’s going to be okay...”  Abe was muttering under his breath a litany of reassurances, and then glanced to her when she registered in his field of vision.  He perked up for a moment.  “Jo, thank god you’re here.”

She looked from Abe to the other side of the desk where there was utter stillness.

_Henry._

One hand was in his lap loosely, the other dangling to his side. On the floor by the chair, a gun. An old one, shiny metal and burnished wood, the kind of antique that belonged in the collection of odds and ends upstairs—and among the even odder collection down here that belonged to Henry.

In contrast with the serene calm on Henry’s face, the peacefully closed eyes and relaxed mouth, was the vicious hole driven through his chest, right through his heart.  His white shirt and grey waistcoat were soaked black with blood, the wound large and ugly in accordance with the size of the barrel on the gun at Henry’s feet.

He might have only been asleep in his chair, sitting upright with his head lolling to the side.

“Is he dead?” Abe whispered. His eyes were riveted on Henry’s face. “Jo, I don’t understand, it’s been hours and he’s still—I don’t…”

Jo forced each step that took her to Henry’s side. Even though logic dictated that there was no point, that his heart had been obliterated by the bullet, she held two fingers to the pulse point under his chin and waited.

His skin was cold. He’d been dead a while.  She swallowed and pulled her hand back.

“Abe, what…”

Abe was staring at her, silently begging her for some hint that what he was seeing wasn’t true. His visage, as grey and colourless as Henry’s bloodless face, appeared to have aged in the time since she’d seen him last, grief and shock dragging him further into his years.

“What happened?” She forced the words from her lips, though it sounded to her ears like they’d come from someone else.

She half expected Henry to chime in with his usual dissection of the crime scene. Any second now he would rise from the chair, flash her that smarmy grin of his, and begin his lecture. She looked at him, but his lips stayed still, his eyes remained closed.

“I was out with a friend for breakfast this morning, and I got home and he was here, like this.” Abe gestured towards Henry.

It was almost four in the afternoon now. How long had Abe been sitting here?

“I got home at 11:23 a.m.,” Abe said, answering her unspoken question. He glanced at the watch on his wrist for the barest second, then back to Henry as though he thought he might have disappeared in that brief space he took his eyes off him. “I had to be sure. I thought maybe if I waited, but…”

His confusion was palpable in the aimless grief in his voice, the clasped hands, the desperation.  Shock had sent him into denial.

Jo wished she could deny it too, but she couldn’t.

“Abe, Henry is dead,” she said softly.  “He’s not coming back.”

Abe closed his eyes. Whatever hope he’d been sustaining, however he’d been sustaining it in the presence of Henry’s obviously dead body, it abandoned him now. He lowered his head and buried his face in trembling hands.

“This isn’t possible,” he groaned. “This isn’t fair. Not like this. He deserved more than this.”

Long years of training and habit took the place of rational thought and Jo pulled her cell to her ear, dialling automatically as she walked away from Abe. Hanson’s voice answered after two rings.

 _“Don’t tell me we’ve got a case on a Sunday,”_ he grumbled.

“Mike, get a team to Henry’s place.”

_“What? Jo, what happened?”_

“Henry’s—“ Her voice failed, and she shook her head and clenched her free hand into a fist. “Henry’s been shot.”

_“Is he—“_

“Yeah.”

There was a space of silence.

_“On it. Don’t move, I’ll be right there.”_

“Thanks.”

Jo tucked away the phone and turned back to Abe. He was at Henry’s side, gently grasping Henry’s head in his hands and looking into his face with great urgency.

“Come on, Henry.  Don’t do this. This can’t be it. Come on, you told me you wanted to grow old, remember? Cycle of life and all that crap. Don’t give up on all that now. Henry, come on, please…”

What had happened here? She needed to get forensics on this, dust for prints, canvas to see if anyone had seen anyone coming or going, find out who had…

She stopped suddenly as she looked at the scene properly. Abe’s pleading turned into a blur of white noise washing past her as the question of what happened came into clear and sharp focus.

No sign of struggle. His clothes and hair were neat and in his usual perfect order.  The gun lay at his side, dropped from nerveless fingers.  Powder burns on Henry’s hand. He’d waited until Abe was out and busy.

_Henry did this to himself._

“Come on, Dad, please don’t do this to me…”

Jo collapsed into the chair Abe had vacated, punched in the gut by the truth.  From above them, the wailing noise of the approaching ambulance echoed down the stairs and joined Abe’s pleas.

***

The next two hours passed in a blur.  Hanson arrived and took charge of the scene, asking questions that no one could answer.  Nothing made any sense.  Abe was lost in a state of confusion, trying to keep at Henry’s side the whole time, bending over to speak quietly to Henry’s body.  Even when the ambulance team put Henry’s body on the stretcher, Abe still insisted that they should wait, they should see, because Henry might be okay.  Abe worked himself into near hysterics, and finally an EMT gave him a sedative to calm him for fear that he’d hurt himself with all the strain and shock.  

Jo stayed behind with him while they took Henry’s body to the morgue.

“He can’t be dead,” Abe murmured as he drifted, nearly asleep on the couch, eyes closed.  Jo stroked his forehead.  “It’s not possible.”

“We’re all mortal, Abe,” she said quietly.  “Even Henry.”

Abe was asleep and didn’t hear her words, or her quiet sobs that followed.


End file.
